


red line overload

by lutzaussi



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Alternate Universe - High School, Beaches, Canon-Typical Violence, Delinquents, Dogs, F/F, F/M, Karate Kid AU, M/M, Questionable Decisions Made on Kakashi's Part, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, Yakuza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-01 05:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12149511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lutzaussi/pseuds/lutzaussi
Summary: They all know it's dumb, but their best chance at getting back at those Sound High assholes is the old man who saved them, yeah?Or: in which Naruto wants to fight everyone. Because he can.





	red line overload

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unseelieknight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unseelieknight/gifts).



“That’s his house,” Naruto said, pointing at the mentioned house until Sakura pulled him down into the cinderblock wall they were hiding behind that fenced in the scrubby backyard. The three of them peeked, Naruto rubbing the scrape his forehead had gained.

“It’s sorta,” Sasuke paused, squinted, “dumpy.” And he wasn’t wrong; the house was large, with a massive garage, but the back yard, at least, was a mess of overgrown grass and dirt, the low deck in need of sanding and staining. A couple of the windows on the second floor were boarded up, and the siding was in bad need of a new coat of paint.

“I know!” Naruto whisper-yelled. “I wasn’t sure so I changed my route to school but it’s  _ definitely _ his house!”

“Don’t tell me you looked at his mail,” Sakura groused.

Naruto rolled his eyes pointedly. “Excuse me, but that’s  _ your _ gimmick. I just might’ve stalked his dog walker, who only walks the dogs on Wednesdays and Fridays. The other days it was  _ him _ .”

Sakura slammed a fist into his side, and it was a miracle that he didn’t let out more than a pained squeak. “That was  _ once _ you shitlord,” she growled, all without looking away from the house, “at least I don’t  _ break into  _ people's houses.”

Naruto and Sakura turned in unison to level glares at Sasuke, who ignored them.

“I’m just saying,” the black-haired boy said, “it looks like this place just has squatters or something.”

“Do you fucking  _ doubt _ me, duck-butt?”

“Fuck yes I do, you fucking idi--”

“Both of you need to shut the fuck up,” Sakura hissed, grabbing them by the collars of their gakuran and dragging them away from their glaring contest back to the wall. “I see movement.”

They resumed staring at the house, and sure enough, dogs appeared in the sliding glass door. Behind them, a lanky man had at least a half dozen ceramic bowls balanced on his hands and was moving through the roiling mass of animals with a practiced sort of ease as he let them out into the yard and began setting the bowls down. The teens looked for three things: silver hair (check), a mask (check, and what the fuck it was one of those cutesy ones for teen girls? Maybe he was actually a perv), and the scar cutting his right eyelid (check. Gnarly).

“It’s fucking  _ him _ ,” Sasuke breathed. Naruto reached past Sakura, barely missing her throat, and punched him in the shoulder.

-

Since Sakura looked the least intimidating (which, hah, was a fucking  _ lie _ ), she was the one in front when they rang the house’s doorbell, her hair quickly pulled up into pigtails for an added oomph. They had a silent argument on whether to ring the bell again when the door opened and they were faced with the silver-haired man.

Dramatics seemed the easiest course of action, so Sakura bowed deeply and the boys almost immediately followed suit as she said, “Sir! We wanted to thank you for helping us the other day, and apologize for putting you in that situation.”

He looked at each of them in turn before focusing back on Sakura. “That hardly warranted a thank you. It was nothing,” he said, and his voice was bored sounding, deep.

“Well, we were wondering, uh,” Sakura glanced at Sasuke and Naruto before forging ahead, “if you would be willing to teach us martial arts.” Frankly, none of them had thought they would get that far, slammed doors were very real.

The man’s face stayed fucking blank, which was  _ great _ , really. The only sign he was alive was his breathing. So Naruto continued, “We keep getting our asses kicked by the assholes at Sound High.”

The man actually raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t say anything. Sasuke added, “Most of the kids at our school, actually. But nobody talks, so nobody gets in trouble.”

“Honor code,” Sakura muttered, tugging one of her sloppy pigtails. “Plus, the dojo Naruto and Sasuke used to go to shut down last year, and we haven’t been able to find another one.”

The eyebrow stayed raised, and he looked at each of them again before putting his hands on his hips and saying, “How old are you all?”

Naruto and Sasuke chorused, “Sixteen!” while Sakura said, “Seventeen.”

The man sighed, asked, “Still in school?” and when they nodded he sighed again, “I’m fine with doing that, but please tell your parents.”

“Wha--really?” Naruto asked, a wide smile breaking onto his face.

“Yes, really,” the man said, deadpan. “Tomorrow, after school, with permission from your parents. My name is Hatake Kakashi.” With that, he stepped back inside the house and shut the door on them.

-

“I’m not sure this is a good idea anymore,” Sasuke said in an almost strangled tone once they were walking back to Naruto’s house, which was a convenient two blocks away if they cut through a park.

“You better not be backing out on us,” Naruto said, jumping on him and nearly choking him to get a noogie in.

“I mean, on the one hand he does seem pretty weird,” Sakura said, slinging her bag over her shoulder, “but there’s also three of us and I’m pretty sure that your dad would kick his ass if anything bad happened, Sunshine.”

“Hell yeah he would!” Naruto crowed, before sobering, “Oh, shit, what’s my dad gonna say?”

-

The answer to that question was “What?” followed by the question of “Who is this guy?” which was itself followed by another question, “Would you all like some tea?”.

“I love your dad more than anyone in the world,” Sakura groaned, sliding down onto the short table they were sitting at as Sasuke pulled his homework out of his book bag.

“I pretend not to have feelings, but I feel the same,” Sasuke muttered, starting in on his math. 

“Am I supposed to be surprised at that?” Naruto asked.

They were well in their work by the time Iruka returned with a tray of mugs of tea for them and an expression on his face that meant he needed answers and needed them immediately.

“Okay, so, you know how I said we were doing homework last Friday at Sakura’s house and the bandages were because of gym?” Naruto babbled out, talking so fast it was nearly impossible to understand him. Iruka hesitantly nodded, began to look actually concerned. “We actually found some kids from Sound High going after some middle schoolers and they sort of, uh.”

“Kicked our asses!” Sakura chirped, not looking up from her chemistry. Naruto shot her something like a glare.

“We got them to leave the kids alone but then they came after us and this really weird guy came in and kicked  _ their _ asses with like, karate or something,” Naruto continued, gesticulating wildly, as if that would make Iruka less pissed-off looking at the entire thing. “So we found him and asked him to train us.”

“What,” Iruka paused, brow furrowed, “is his name?”

“Hatake Kakashi,” the three of them chorused as one.

He made a little “Hm!” sound, and Sakura and Sasuke looked up from their work. Iruka had a surprised, somewhat considering look on his face. “Okay, just make sure you get home before your curfew.”

One of those sunny smiles spread across Naruto’s face, and he chirped, “Of course!”

-

The next day after their classes had finished, Naruto and Sasuke piled onto Sakura’s motorcycle for the ride to Kakashi’s house. Three of them barely fit on it, despite the elongated seat, but they made it without dying or falling off. The bike was left in the alley behind Kakashi’s house, covered with a tarp that Sakura somehow managed to keep on her person at all times.

They were more apprehensive than excited as they trooped around to the front of the house, and frankly that was for good reason. As soon as they were mauled by and then introduced to the dogs, Kakashi led them out to the backyard they had staked out the day before, stopping on the deck and gesturing with his chin toward a pile of sandpaper. “The entire deck, side to side, with the grain of the wood.”

The teens shared a look, apprehensive, then split for the sandpaper.

-

Sasuke was the one to finally lose it, a week later. “What the hell is us waxing cars and--and cleaning up this guy’s house going to do for us?” he griped to Naruto when they were taking a break and smoking. Sakura was taking the opportunity to share the wax love with her motorcycle, and ignored them.

“Fuck if I know,” Naruto shrugged, delicately ripping the bandage on his right thumb off. “Must have some reason for it.”

“Doubt it,” Sakura said, polishing off the cherry-red of the bike’s gas tank until she could literally see her face in it. The boys looked at her and she shrugged, “I mean, he seems like the laziest person alive, and we all know Nara Shikamaru, so that’s really saying something.”

Sasuke looked excessively annoyed about that, and stood, flicking his cigarette onto the ground and grinding it out under his boot.

“Sasuke, no, god, please don’t go yell at this dude, we still don’t know if he has a criminal record,” Naruto whined, grabbing hold of the nearest part of Sasuke, which happened to be his ankle. He barely kept himself upright. “Or how long his hypothetical criminal record might hypothetically be, dude, stop.”

“Hell no, I’m getting answers,” Sasuke growled, peeling Naruto off and stomping off to the house. Naruto followed him a beat later, but paused to grab and drag Sakura along. They shuffled in and tried to melt into the freshly-painted walls while Sasuke went straight for Kakashi, who looked up from his computer with an eyebrow raised. Maybe it was just permanently stuck like that.

“Okay, what the fuck is this? You’re just having us do your chores for you,” Sasuke started in, fully yelling because goddamn he had no self control.

Kakashi struck like a snake, but Sasuke’s arm automatically came up in the motion they’d been doing for hours on end, the circle of the arm that was basically second nature after the six cars they had waxed (and, in some cases, had to re-wax). He knocked the grab off-course and Kakashi caught himself before he fell, stepped back. The man spread his hands as if to say,  _ see? _

Sakura and Naruto shared a look of dumb surprise. Sasuke stayed stock-still for a moment before slouching, a barely impressed expression on his face.

“The cars should be fine for now. I’m going to be out of town for the next week on business, the dogs will be taken care of,” he sat back down, looking almost pleased. “But,” he said, suddenly looking as ominous as a person wearing a face mask with a cat mouth printed on it could, “if you all are free….”

-

Taking the sum total of their experiences with Kakashi, they had more questions than answers. During lunch the first day of their break from the man Sakura called a meeting behind the shed they stored the old sports gear in to address those questions. Sasuke arrived first to try and slip in a smoke, and once Sakura and Naruto arrived, all three shared Naruto’s bento.

“So, like, who is this guy? We know his name and that he has roughly a billion dogs and a billion vintage cars to match, but that’s it,” Naruto said.

“Yakuza?” Sakura hesitantly asked.

“I’m fairly sure we would know if he was yakuza. I mean, given who lives in this town,” Sasuke said, letting Naruto swipe the last rice ball from his hand. “But, you could always ask Ino.”

“Mm, I will in gym,” Sakura stood and wiped the dirt from her skirt, pointed at both of the boys, “meet me at my locker after school.”

They nodded, and parted ways as the bell rang.

-

“Nothing from Ino,” Sakura told Sasuke as he leaned against the lockers next to hers and held her bag for her while she changed her shoes. “She said the name sort of sounded familiar but she couldn’t think of anything.”

“Goddamn it,” he muttered, obediently handed her bag back to her as Naruto approached and changed his shoes as well. “Nothing. At all.”

“ _ Zero _ , Sunshine,” Sakura reiterated.

“I don’t want to give up on this, but what the hell else can we do to try and figure out who this guy is?” Sasuke said.

“Okay, might have an idea,” Sakura flipped her keys out of her bag and shook them pointedly, “Do you guys want to find out who the hell this guy is?”

“Fuck yes, I’m in, I don’t have to be home until ten anyway,” Naruto said, throwing his book bag over his shoulder. Sasuke shrugged, and they followed Sakura out of the entry hall of the school building and across the street to the alley she had parked her bike in.

The city library was all the way across the town, and Sakura found another alley nearby to park the bike in. They tried to look less like the delinquents they were, but pretty much failed as the librarians stared at them until they were lost in the stacks.

“Yearbooks?” Sasuke asked.

“I would say yes, but he could be in his twenties or his fifties,” Sakura said. “Dude has babyface, and he wears a mask all the time.”

“Well, if he’s done something notable, like to earn enough money to buy all those old cars, there would be stuff in the newspaper, yeah?” Naruto chimed in. They all looked at each other for a few moments before nodding and heading, single-file, to the second floor of the building, where the periodicals were stored.

The floor was empty, which was a goddamn blessing, because they had over a century of archived microfilm to go through. Well, once they had done some paring down, it was more like thirty years, but that still ended up being over three hundred and sixty rolls of film.

So, they started at the most recent newspapers and began working their way back one roll of film at a time. It took them three days of eye-straining work in between school, “training” at Kakashi’s house, and actually trying to get sleep before they found him. Sasuke was the first one to find mention of “Hatake Kakashi”, in a small column that was typically dedicated to the day-to-day events of the city.

“Famous judoka Hatake Kakashi has returned to Yosomachi after retiring,” Sakura read in a stage whisper once they were crowded around the reader Sasuke was using. They were alone on the floor once again, so it didn’t really matter how loud she was. “A judo prodigy from Yosomachi, Hatake won gold for Japan at the 1984 Summer Olympics, placing above Germany’s Frank Wieneke. After his retirement following a gold medal at the 1985 World Judo Championships, Hatake laid to rest the rumors that he would coach, instead leaving the public eye for nearly two years before returning to Yosomachi, his hometown.”

“Okay, this is ‘87,” Sasuke said, moving to look through the metal cabinets the film was kept in, “uh, the Olympics started in, like, July, right?”

“Yeah, probably,” Naruto got up to help him while Sakura scribbled down what they had learned and got the film out of the reader.

With a narrowed search range, they found more articles on him with ease. There was a lot, actually, and by the time one of the librarians came up to tell them that the library would be closing Sakura had four pages of information in her composition book.

Most of Kakashi’s story they still didn’t know, but they at least knew about his judo career, the three world titles he had, his Olympic win. That earned him some respect, because he  _ had _ to know what he was doing, even if it hadn’t necessarily seemed that way until a couple weeks before.

It was barely six when they got out of the library, which meant they had half an hour of freedom before Kakashi expected them. Half an hour wasn’t a lot, but it was long enough for them to find soda, for Sasuke to get a fresh pack of cigarettes, and for Sakura to change out of her school uniform in the bathroom of the McDonald’s they stopped at.

With the interior of the house cleaned up thanks to their efforts over the past month, Kakashi met them outside with two ladders, a fresh box of sandpaper, and five passed out dogs. It was fairly obvious what the man intended them to do, and the teens shared a look and groaned.

-

They got all of the outside woodwork sanded and re-stained within two weeks, and by the time they had finished the school term was likewise winding up. Summer break meant some time away from doing Kakashi’s chores--they had a class trip to Okinawa, Sasuke was flying to Macau to visit his brother, and Sakura (with perhaps Naruto, contingent on how Iruka felt about it) was being dragged to the ocean as decided by Ino before school ended.

So after spending four days in Okinawa, Naruto and Sakura saw Sasuke off to the airport at five in the morning after their return the evening before. It was gawdawful early, but Naruto had been up when his dad left for work and Sakura just hadn’t slept.

They were planning on going to Kakashi’s later in the day, but their morning plans were to be actually productive and finish most, if not all, of their summer homework. It was really easier said than done, but they slogged through while wistfully staring out at the warm, breezy day outside.

Giving up was basically inevitable, but they had made it through a good portion of their worksheets before doing so, and there weren’t too many feelings of guilt there.

Naruto was attempting to nap while Sakura painted her nails (dark red, some knockoff of an American brand) and brought up the question. “Why did your dad react like that when we said Kakashi-sensei was training us?”

“Like what?” he cracked an eye at her.

“He just went ‘huh’ and accepted it,” she looked up at him, brows creased in confusion, “like, why would he just accept it?”

“Maybe he heard about him from the Olympics and stuff.”

“Bullshit Sunshine, he would still want to meet him if he’d never met him before,” Sakura grumbled, going back to her nails.

Naruto was silent for a few minutes, before squinting up at the ceiling with perplexion on his face. “Wait, what the fuck, you’re  _ right. _ ”

-

Summer was not complete without the beach. It was pretty much a unanimous feeling, shared by friends and rivals alike, which was how Naruto and Sakura found themselves glaring at a group of Sound High kids at least a kilometer away from them on the white-gold sand. But still in eyesight, and it was only when Ino arrived, entourage in tow, that they stopped. They outnumbered their rival school at that point, so there wasn’t much of a point to starting a scuffle.

But: summer.

Watermelons. Small swimsuits. Dunking unsuspecting individuals in the somehow still-freezing ocean water. Getting drunk in Ino’s family’s beach house that was more of a mansion than beach house and had suspicious stains on some of the tatami that they ignored.

Their chaperone for the trip was one of Ino’s “Big Sisters”, a woman named Anko who dyed her hair bright purple and seemed to give few fucks about them, and even fewer fucks that they had raided the oversized liquor cabinets in the house. In fact, she caught Choji and Ino drinking beer, which then devolved into a beer pong tournament. And she let them start a fire down on the stretch of beach behind the house, where (she had whispered in a conspiratorial way that was mostly just disturbing) the cops never checked for those sorts of things.

-

Their final day of staying in the beach house was, surprisingly, the most memorable. It was hard to quantify which part of the day made it so; it seemed to be a whole collection of bizarre moments.

The day started with a very audible scream from Tenten, who found three black plastic bags out by the back porch covered with cockroaches. Anko herded them all to the beach they’d regularly been going to, muttering the whole time about calling someone, and “cleaners”. Once at the beach the incident had been somewhat forgotten, until they’d run out of food. Sakura had volunteered to bike back to the house to grab some food, Choji tagging along, but just when they’d rounded the (very ostentatiously long) driveway, a large black SUV ran them off into a camellia bush.

Really, black SUVs driven by people wearing sunglasses sporting visible tattoos? How fucking unsubtle could the yakuza be?

Then. Oh, then. When they had returned from a convenience store with sodas and snacks for everyone, cigarettes for Shikamaru as well, the Sound High kids were back.

Not only were they back; they were ones that Sakura recognized for a very specific reason. Naruto was nearly vibrating when she chucked a can at his head. “Sakura,” he whined, and not because he was nearly killed by Pocari Sweat.

“We’re chilling,” she said, sitting next to him and cracking her can of coffee. “Sasuke will murder both of us if we finish this shit, no matter how much he may love you, Sunshine.”

“But,” he whined, “we still haven’t gotten them back. It’s been  _ months _ Sakura I wanna kick someone’s face in.”

“Sound High?” Ino butted in, insinuating herself all over Sakura. The other two nodded. “Still haven’t kicked their asses?” Again, nodded. “You know,” Ino said, in the matter of fact tone that meant she was actually sharing good information, “you could just challenge them now for a fight when Sasuke’s back.”

Sakura and Naruto shared a look, and before Sakura could grab Naruto he was sprinting off with a single-minded determination on his face, Pocari dumped onto the sand.

-

The last thing, the thing that in Sakura’s mind at least took the cake of the entire day and set it on fire with a flamethrower, was their trip back to Yosomachi.

They took the bus because it was cheapest, and anyway Ino didn’t want her dad to drive them in a caravan of black SUVs. Sakura had a window seat; Ino sat next to her, Naruto next to her. Everyone else was around them, and it felt like deja vu after their bus and plane ride to Okinawa just weeks before. Sakura was taking the chance to get some sleep, or at least trying to, when Ino poked her in the shoulder.

“Wanna play truth or dare?”

-

So that was how Sakura got her first kiss, her first makeout session, and her first groping, all courtesy of Ino. Naruto and Kiba headbutted each other so hard they both fainted. Hinata cut her hair off (Neji helped her even up the ends) and then agreed to a date with both Lee and Tenten. Separately. They all learned way more about each other than they probably bargained, but the mood as they straggled off the bus at the station was one of familiar contentment, and they parted ways with plans to hang out the weekend after school started.

Sakura and Naruto walked back to Naruto’s house, because it was closer than hers to the station and she had left her bike at it. Iruka convinced her to stay the evening (not that it required much convincing at all), and it was only when he left them arguing about who would get to be Mario in Super Mario Bros. that Naruto turned serious for the first time since confronting the Sound High kids.

“Should I tell my dad about our brawl?” he asked

“You think we’re gonna end up in the hospital?” Sakura asked in return, stealing the entire Famicom while Naruto thought.

“Nah, those punks are weak.”

“Then  _ hell _ no, he doesn’t need to know.”

-

They met in a wide alley between what had formerly been a bar and what was being renovated into an arcade. There were five of the Sound kids, and the three of them.

Predictably, Naruto threw the first punch, right into the teeth of the orange-mohawked guy, and then everything devolved from there. Sakura distinctly remembered mauling the face of one of the two identical guys with dark hair after; Sasuke broke someone’s arm, basically everyone had nosebleeds, and tetanus was a real worry.

But after what was probably only thirty minutes but what felt like three hours, they were still standing. They were  _ still standing _ . Naruto had probably been mostly lying when he told Sakura that he thought they weren’t going to end up in the hospital but it had been like a goddamn prophecy, and she fully tackled him in a hug when everything was said and done.

-

Sasuke’s apartment was a no-brainer, mostly because Sakura always made sure he had a fully stocked first aid kit but also because he lived alone and they wanted to stay under Iruka’s delinquent radar.

Mostly it was just waiting for nosebleeds to stop, bandaging scrapes, and icing bruises to try and minimise them. Naruto fell asleep with his head on Sasuke’s lap but woke up when Sakura announced, “We need to stop by Kakashi-sensei’s.”

-

Kakashi was, embarrassingly, in a yukata and mask, puttering around his yard and pulling weeds with a single-minded concentration. The dogs massed around him, but once they noticed the three teens climbing over the fence they all mobbed.

Naruto accepted his fate and laid down on the ground to get trampled by the dogs while Sakura, followed by Sasuke, waded through.

“Thank you for teaching us, sensei!” Sakura said when they got close enough, bowing as she had the first time they had properly met him. “We successfully defended our turf.”

If any of them had noticed the momentary look of surprise on Kakashi’s face, they probably would’ve kicked his ass next.

“Hn, so you fought and won,” he said, in his usual bland tone. “And you don’t need me to teach you anymore.”

“No, sensei,” Sakura said. He seemed to be going somewhere with his talk, but like everything the man damn well said, it was not clear where.

“Oh, well, have fun in school,” he waved for them to go on and leave, and whistled to get the dogs back to him.

-

They were climbing back over the stone wall when he called, from the deck, “You all want to learn actual judo?”

-

Their next and final stop was, as had become somewhat usual for school nights, Naruto’s house. Iruka was there, making what smelled like okonomiyaki.

“How’d the fight go?” he yelled as they stepped into the house. The question was immediately followed by a muttered, “Oh, fuck.”

Sasuke and Sakura stared balefully at Naruto as they took their shoes off, but he just looked confused and mouthed, “I didn’t say anything!” They dropped their bags off in Naruto’s room before tiptoeing to the kitchen, peering in around the doorway at Iruka.

He had a Look on his face, a Look that meant he was very disappointed. It didn’t seem to be directed at any of them, but mostly at himself.

“How did you know?” Naruto asked, voice full of suspicion.

Iruka sighed. “Well, we didn’t want you to know. Kakashi was my senpai in school.”

“Your...senpai?” Sasuke asks, as they don’t move an inch further inside the room.

“Yes, my  _ senpai _ ,” Iruka said. Nothing more was said of it that evening. They asked, but he didn’t answer.

-

Their first actual judo lesson was in a small dojo that Kakashi was loaning from a friend to train them in. It felt strange to actually be in a dojo and do training that wasn’t disguised as chores and menial tasks. Naruto and Sasuke, having had a couple years of training beforehand, were more skilled than Sakura, but what she lacked in skill she made up for in raw power.

When they were finished, cleaning up the dojo, Naruto turned to Kakashi, hands on his hips, and demanded to know about his relationship with Iruka.

Sasuke and Sakura escaped then, sharing a cigarette outside, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Kakashi didn’t know what he had agreed to take on at all.

 


End file.
